I have to laugh because I am often considered a little too much "git 'er done, in your face."

I think your analysis of the best dynamic for effecting social change is right on. It's not really like Picard and the underlings; it's more those out in front cutting a path and those behind them widening and further shaping it.

That said, I think the frontrunners need not only to know what they're talking about, but be able to articulate the vision. Saying "gender-neutral" is saying nothing unless you define your terms.

People on the thread are contrasting terms such as "gender-neutral," "gender-equality," "gender-diversity." I would wager that at this point, no one has the same definition for any of these. The "gender-neutral" of the OP wasn't even defined.

Until some move toward defining the goal is made, in concrete terms, even the frontrunners are running in circles. Women didn't get the vote without someone defining what it meant to treat the sexes equally in that respect: let both vote. Thus was born a movement.

point taken. Let me get back to you on my current working definitions of the terminology. In the meantime, I think it would be excellent if everyone supplied the definition they're working with.

Actually, you bring up a point I was going to make the other day and then decided to wait on it. What you describe re: race is almost *precisely* what both the Left and the Right have decided is the best way to deal with this. I see something similar happening with gender. The problem with this is that it puts the emphasis on the wrong part of the problem.

I'll describe it with race and then bring it back to gender. Both the Left (race doesn't matter) and the Right (content of our character...) appear to have decided, incorrectly in my estimation, that if we just *ignore* race then racism will go away. So one hears things like "I don't see color" or "I'm colorblind". The subtext is this: "I know I'm not supposed to be a racist so I won't see color. So as long as I can *pretend* that race doesn't exist I won't have racist thoughts or make racist statements. The moment I have to acknowledge the existence of race, I will have racist thoughts."

I think this is wrong. The problem is not that race doesn't exist (obviously there are genetic differences that lead to differences of phenotype) the problem is that we mistakenly ascribe *meaning* to these genetic differences. It is one thing to say "85% of all black Americans will develop hypertension by the time they are 50", a statement that could not be made if there were no such thing as black people. It is quite another thing to say "black Americans are more prone to be criminal than whites". One is simply a statement of fact about a particular disease and its frequency within a defined population. Another is a imposition of a meaning onto blacks.

Now we seem to have decided that the *best* way to deal with gender is not to extract mistakenly placed meaning but to do away with the category what-so-ever. So male and female must be done away with instead of the idea that, for instance, female = emotion-oriented or male = action-oriented Nor is the object to do away with the idea that the former is intrinsically bad and the latter is intrinsically good. No, the only way to liberation *must* be that the categories do not exist.

I think this is gravely mistaken. Equality is not, nor can it be, predicated on their being no categories or on the idea that all our categories are mere social constructions. Our commitment to equality and our arguments in favor of it are better based upon the idea that people are individual, semi-autonomous, self-interested agents and that it is morally unacceptable and ethically indefensible, to judge an individual on the perceived average characteristics of some group that person might be a member of.

Cheers
Aj

Yes. This. Precisely. The problem is not gender, the problem is injustice. There is nothing wrong with the category female or male. There is nothing wrong with the category boy or girl, man or woman, butch or femme, what-have-you. The problem is when we determine that we are going to ascribe 'good' or 'superior' to one and ascribe 'bad' or 'inferior' to another.

Cheers
Aj

Heart;

Thank you. This is what bothers me as well. I fear a situation where what we will see is that 'appropriate' behavior will just be moved. I say this, in part, based upon my experience with race and multiculturalism. About the time I was born, there was a shift in the black community away from assimilation and toward Afrocentrism. Now, had it been the case that it was merely a choice of what one might choose for oneself, that would be one thing but that's not how it played out. What happened is that Afrocentric-behavior became the new norm. So if one was not sufficiently 'African' one's entire racial identity could be be challenged. People set themselves up as gatekeepers as to who or what was considered sufficiently African. The irony is that one of the things that was proposed as a sign of an Afrocentric worldview was that there were no hierarchies or gatekeepers!

My concern, based upon prior experience, is that there will be unintended consequences to this kind of policy and one of those consequences will likely be that 'gender-neutral' will become normative and any expression of a strong gendered identity--in any dimension--will be considered against the norm.

Cheers
Aj

JustJo:

I'm going to dovetail off of what you have said because I think that Nature gets a vote in almost any plans that Homo sapiens can conceive of. SOME gender expressions are taught but some are just there. They are just there because we have an evolutionary history--whether we like it or not, whether we believe it or not--and that history informs what we are. For all but the last 75 years or so, men have needed the greater upper-body strength. When all humans were hunter-gatherers, it was men who went out and hunted the big stuff, everyone hunted the small stuff, and women did most of the gathering. That kind of thing is written in our genes because, in fact, it *matters* if you have good upper body strength if you are using a spear or a bow and arrow. The boundaries of the *possible* human societies were constrained because women give birth to relatively large babies that have to be squeezed out of a relatively small space and then are fairly helpless as far as providing for themselves for the first 5 years and are not truly ready to start contributing until their teens.

Does that mean that *all* gender roles are genetic? No. The fact that, in Western societies, women decorate themselves more lavishly, on average, than men is a rather interesting anomaly since it's not what we would necessarily expect. However, pretending that all gender roles are culturally conditioned is to make Homo sapiens both more and less than an animal at the same time. More because it means that unlike every *other* animal on this planet, we have no evolutionary history that made us. Less because it means that while we can try to understand, say, dogs by holding onto the idea that, in essence, a dog is a wolf-puppy that will always remain a puppy (as wolves would mark that behavior, not as we would) with a wolf-brain we cannot try to understand human beings as a social ape that is now living in an environment our brains were not designed for and which we are waiting for them to play catch up.

Cheers
Aj

This is not my most thought out response, so apologies if it's a bit convoluted, but I'm not saying that the problem is gender, i'm saying the problem is the arbitrary definitions assigned therein and the injustice that results.

Also, i'm seeing a lot of binary terminology here, and that really gets my goat. Again with the division into A or B, opposites, whatever. It's not true in nature or life in general so I dislike that it's being touted in a thread where my entire point is that it's ludicrous to think we can divide things into neat little oppositional categories and find a way for everyone to explore these categories without bias or judgment.

For the sake of brevity, I'm using binaries because--quite honestly--I don't want to type out every *possible* combination of gender expressions that human beings might be capable of. That strikes me as convoluted. So let's start here, what would a less arbitrary definition be?

Humans categorize. To use language is to categorize. The moment I call something a bird, I am tacitly making the statement that the animal I'm speaking of is not a mammal. When I speak about a land-mammal, I am tacitly making the statement that I'm not talking about water-fowl or water-dwelling mammals. I can't talk about water-dwelling mammals without making two distinctions, mammals and everything that isn't a mammal and water-dwelling and everything that is not water-dwelling.

Again, my concern is that the new normative will be "thou shalt not have a defined gender expression". Therefore, it will be fine as long as one is not identified with 'he' or 'she' in any kind of consistent fashion. What does it look like when we no longer have these arbitrary categories? What does our language sound like? How do we keep 'gender-neutral' (whatever that might mean) from being the new normative position?

Cheers
Aj

I see a lot of talk in bf/queer communities railing against the binary. I don't see the main problem being how many categories there are. It's the differing values attached to them. Yes there are some problems with there being only two boxes- where you can only be one or the other. However what if woman and men were expansive categories, where individuals were free to explore and express what woman or man means to them? I wouldn't find the binary so stifling then. I think it would also provide a more natural way of recognizing more genders than two.

I am a butch woman. For me woman is expansive, almost limitless. I try to contribute to expanding what woman is and can be, not coming up with more categories. For those who have different genders I support you as well. However the problems I encounter as a butch woman is sexism and misogyny as a woman and my butchness either being translated into male terms or me being seen as "butch lite" because I am a woman. These difficulties all have a lot more to do with woman and man being narrowly defined and with man being valued over woman than it does with there being only two choices.

Butch and femme are transgressive, alternative genders but they are still a majority of the time viewed through the old value system and through a binary lens. We have come up with new variations of gender but have we broken down the value system attached to the binary? I don't believe gender neutral or multiplicity of gender in and of itself will break down sexism and misogyny which is what makes the binary so oppressive.

My apologies, i did not mean to imply that you list every possible combination. Believe it or not you and I are saying the same thing. My objection is to your example of female being emotion-oriented and male being action-oriented. I say, rather, that the autonomous individuals self identify however they wish, and the responsibility rests with them for how they choose to define the terminology they use for themselves.

I favor neutrality because it does not assume to know how you view yourself and how you present yourself to the world. Gender neutral language is still in it's infancy, yes, but it is being used. I'm not saying "thou shalt not have a defined gender expression" (although there are some androgynes who embrace that wholeheartedly), I'm saying that my interpretation of the word I choose to label my gender pantomime might not match yours.

So yes, you are correct: humans categorize. I support the gender neutral rearing of children because I would rather these children define gender, categories and their best fit in the world on their own terms rather than the interpretations that have been accepted without question for so long. Sure, it was great for men to be defined partially by their musculature back when we needed to throw spears to hunt, but we are no longer a species whose evolution depends heavily on our physical nature, I believe it is shifting towards intellectual evolution.

I understand your (and Heart's) apprehension that this will turn the judgment against those who prefer a sharply defined sense of their gender and the way they choose to represent it, but I can't see how that would be the case if all expressions were welcomed and encouraged from birth.

I think we have a gigantic disconnect between what you mean and what I mean when I say "gender neutral".

I use gender neutral language/pronouns in reference to some of my queer friends who prefer those pronouns and choose not to be defined by their gender. The exchanges with these individuals are just as exciting to me as those with individuals who clearly define their gender. Gender neutral language acknowledges that the individual can be anywhere on the spectrum and enjoy any combination of behaviors and activities, and I do not get to have the luxury of using gender to begin to interpret them. These individuals force me to dig deeper and find out more about them. This approach took some getting used to which, in turn, forced me to examine how large a role gender plays in my daily life.

Andy, can you give me some real life/real language examples of this?

I use gender neutral language/pronouns in reference to some of my queer friends who prefer those pronouns and choose not to be defined by their gender.


Like, pretend that you're talking to a few friends who identify differently along the M/F continuum, and you want to ask them each something about each other. For example, with clear M/F identifiers, you might say, "What does she think about your mustache?"

Or whatever you come up with, but I can't get what this is without hearing it.

Okay, well zie/zir are, i believe, the most common pronouns. Zie was grooming zir moustache before the drag show.

I also have a poet friend who prefers "they". They include this information in their biography before sending it to be published for a performance.

This is why I mentioned my experience with Afrocentrism in the black community. Initially, the whole idea was that this was a way for blacks, if we so chose, to 'decolonize' our minds by focusing our attention on Africa and African culture. It has become a symbol of how 'black' one actually is. The more one assimilates the less 'authentically black' one is. To observe this in action, note how Juan Williams, or John McWhorter, Shelby Steele, Condi Rice or Clarence Thomas get called "oreo" or "coconut" or "Uncle Tom". Now, I am the last black woman on this planet to defend Thomas, but isn't it possible that he and I could have a disagreement, even a spirited disagreement, while both of us maintain our 'black identity'? I would say yes. In the black community the consensus may very well be 'no'. So now, being African-identified, if you will, is now normative and what is aberrant is to be American-identified, or black-identified, or--gasp!--assimilationist.

I am not saying YOU would like to see gender neutral be the new norm to the exclusion of a strong sense of gender. Rather, I'm saying that just like no one in the black community in the 60s or 70s *intended* Afrocentrism to become the de facto badge of 'real, true blackness' so too might it come to pass that being strongly identified as 'he' or 'she' will be considered a sign that one is not 'really' enlightened or not 'really' committed to equality.

I understand that this is a somewhat pessimistic view of human behavior but it seems to me that *everything* implies some form of costs and that unintended consequences do crop up despite all our best intentions.

I agree that now, as we increasingly move away from the basis of economic activity being physically based and toward it being intellectually based, that we have gained some new degrees of freedom to maneuver. But I still think that we will have the evolutionary hangover from the African savannah for millennia to come. I am one who does not think we can build just any old kind of society we might conceive of--not if we have any concern about freedom or equality. That does not mean I think that change is impossible, far from it. Rather, I think that there are changes that are easier and harder depending upon how much inertia must be overcome. Getting people to eat sugary or fatty foods is easy because our bodies LOVE sugary or fatty foods and will make us feel very, very good about eating them. Getting people to have sex is, again, pretty easy to manage. Getting people to *not* eat to satiation or to eschew having sex is a bit more of a challenge since we are now trying to push something uphill.

I think getting people to a gender-neutral society is probably possible in the long-term, having a gender-neutral society where that is not normative is an uphill push.

Cheers
Aj

I agree with everything you said here. Granted, I'm a bit of a youngin and have only been able to view the afrocentric movement of the 60s and 70s through the lens of white privilege and the pages of history books, but I can certainly draw parallels between that struggle for self-definition and the current dialogue about gender.

Thank you very much for recognizing that I am not trying to encourage gender neutrality as an exclusionary tactic. I agree that, as with all passionate movements, it is the responsibility of the revolutionaries to be vigilant and self-monitor to be sure we aren't losing sight of the big picture. I thank you for pointing that out, as it's something I feel I would like to keep in the back of my mind.

Am I correct in stating that we are both commited to the idea of a more inclusionary societal structure with it's accompanying set of terminology, despite our radically different approaches to the subject? :)

Yes. We are certainly both committed to that. I would feel better if we centered our striving for social inclusion to be centered on the individual instead of a collective identity. I think it is sufficient to say, for instance, that regardless of my being black, butch, lesbian, nerdy I should not be denied the right to vote, a fair shake at a job, equal pay for my labor, etc. It should not matter how I identify because my claim upon those rights are not based upon my various identities. Rather, those rights adhere to me for no other reason than that I am a member of Homo sapiens.

My concern here is that we are going down a road the consequences of which we cannot be certain of. I would like a world where if some little girl has as her fondest desires for her tenth birthday, a telescope, a microscope, a chemistry set and a summer at Space Camp or some science camp, she will be encouraged in those ambitions and no one will tell her that she shouldn't have those desires. If her brother should decide that *his* fondest desires for his tenth birthday are a pony, ballet lessons and a flute no one will think him any less a boy. No one will call him a sissy. Rather, it will be that Jane wants, more than anything else, to be an astronaut and Jack wants, more than anything else, to be world renowned ballet dancer. Nothing more and nothing less. No one will think it singular or odd that the aspiring ballet dancer is a boy or the aspiring astronaut is a girl. What's more, when they are grown, if Jack bursts out crying during some touching scene in a movie no one will think Jack an odd duck. If Jane tries to be cool-as-a-cucumber most of the time, no one will think her an odd duck either.

That is the world I would like to see. If the only way to get there is through gender-neutrality then so be it. I remain unconvinced that it is either the only or even the best way.

Cheers
Aj

Yes, that structural and institutional nature of valuation that continues to impact gender, race and ethnicity, and value assigned to physical and emotional "fitness." Those structures that continue to give oppression a host.

As Aj points out, there are significant physiological reasons to consider in how divisions of labor historically evolved along gender lines. Yet, in agricultural based society there was no "value" assigned to either binary distinctions. All members contributed to the continued existence of bands, tribes, families, etc. without designating one as better than the other. Most revered their aging populations and many also had places of honor for those that were "different" (two-spirit beliefs via native Americans and similar designations in early Egyptian society are only 2 examples). Both patriarchal and matriarchal societies have existed without the kinds of gender based hierarchies and value based distinctions post industrial era, evolving mainly via religious doctrine.

As we have moved into the information and technological ages and a serious time for gender to be illuminated beyond a binary, I see great opportunity to diminish, and eventually leavie value-based gender distinctions behind. It is possible. It won't be fully attained in my lifetime, but there is a good start. And this does not mean we have to become genderless or neutralize our gender presentations even those that might have attachment to what we have historically identified as male or female. There does not have to be value assigned to these distinctions at all. Or to variances in either. I think that there could also be breakthroughs linguistically so that we finally have language that supports this evolution so that we will be able to talk about gender without always searching for terms that do describe progression in gender identification.

Noam Chomsky (who I generally disagree with) has pointed out that, for instance, we place almost *no* meaning judgment on other arbitrary characteristics like eye-color or height. No one, at least in Western culture, would say "oh, women over 6' tall are smarter than women under 6' tall" or "men who are 5'6" are more prone to be criminals than men who are 5'10". We do not ascribe intelligence to brown eyed people, kindness to blue eyed people and dutifulness to green eyed people. Height and eye color are just two visual descriptors we might use to describe someone physically but we do not interpret that physical description to say something about their character.
I think we should be aspiring to a culture where the characteristics we *currently* use to ascribed character traits to a person are no more meaningful than height or eye color.

Cheers
Aj

Yes, this exactly....whether those descriptive terms have to do with gender, race, age, size or whatever else you can imagine.

We get hung up (individually and as a society), I think, when we attach character assumptions and value judgements based on physical characteristics.

Veering off-topic maybe, so I'll be brief, but: It's fairly well supported that there are judgments attached to each of the trait pairs/triads you mention. Taller women do better in business than short women. Someone's bias is behind that. Green-eyed women are tagged as jealous; redheads as fiery. To some degree you can never eradicate bias in anything. For whatever reason, humans consciously and unconsciously widely pair objectively unrelated traits.


[[I must tease you with this: Though Chomsky is in no way a prescriptive linguist, in the context I think it better to say, "Noam Chomsky (whom I generally disagree with)" >;-)

Congratulations, you've just moved to the top of my short list as my preferred editrix for my book! (joking) Oh and thank you, the funny thing is that I had originally typed 'whom' and then changed it.

Oh and while linguistics is not my speciality, my guess as to why we categorize is that it is an artifact of language--a spandrel if you will. If it's true, (and I'm almost certainly wrong on the particulars) I wonder if this was a forced move or if it is possible to have language and *not* engage in this kind of obsessive categorization.

Cheers
Aj

If my child attends a gender neutral classroom how do I explain Mama when she comes home? How do I explain TV, magazines and all the other junk that children are exposed to? How do I explain my partner's gender?

There have been studies done on race and how children process it and at what age they have an understanding of it. One of the most important things to come out of that study is that what a child learns at school is almost useless unless the concepts are talked about at home. That is where the most critical and important learning goes on for very young children. So I am wondering how effective can a program like this be? It will be interesting to find out.

This is a link to the discussion of the study.

http://webcache.googleusercontent.co...&ct=clnk&gl=us

Huh. Well. That would be beyond my unconscious control. I'd suggest that for speech to be fluid, one would have to engage in studious application of the extended pronoun matrix for months, if not years, before mastering it as native speech.

I'm curious why you believe that if the parents are sending their children to a gender neutral school, they would not be supportive of the concept and addressing it in the home as well.


Actually, I tend to use "they" and "their" fluently in everyday speech, as I work in a state where you can still be fired for sexual orientation. I never offer up my partner's gender in conversation.

I agree that they would be predisposed to the idea, but would they know how to effect it? I don't think that, in reality, it would be something you could just sort of say, "Okay! Let's do that!"

I may be taking this idea too seriously though. What do you think about that?


Oh well, so do I but not because I've consciously adopted it. Neutral 3rd person singular has been shifting in natural language from "one" and "he" to "they" for decades. (thank god.)

I was responding to the idea of using pronouns everyone picks for themselves.

Focusing on individual pronoun use does not address institutional inequities. There is a kind of obsession with individuality in the gender movement that feels like it becomes a distraction from deeper systemic issues. I do understand that using pronouns not burdened with stereotyped histories (in the 1970s Marge Piercy suggested "per," Kate Swift suggested "tey, ter, tem"), is appealing, but does it dismantle anything, or is it an option for a privileged few?

I agree Scandal, that we may have a disconnect which is only word-deep, as I think we both support the idea of gender as liberatory rather than oppressive. The idea I don't support is that gender is useless, out-dated, and needs to be erased, done away with. That's throwing the baby out with the bathwater IMO.

I think where the more interesting discussion lies is in notions of the BINARY. I never experienced male/female feminine/masculine as restricted boxes. They have always been a landscape to me from as far back as I can remember. Perhaps that's thanks to my rather bohemian upbringing. What I have experienced, of course, is conflict between my own wide perception of gender and the broader culture's desire to restrict me as a woman, to have me agree to ridiculously and dangerously narrow ideas of what a woman is. I have fought this for a long-ass time. As the mother of a son, I have also resisted stereotyped notions of what it means to be a boy or a man.

Perhaps I don't want to see that hard and worthy battle reduced to an array of pronouns from which we can pick like a buffet. On the other hand, perhaps that is exactly what I fought for.

Heart

To clearify:

The swedish agenda is not to take away gender all together, it's not about taking away peoples boxes, should they want them, and so on...

Our agenda is however to make the boxes large enough to move and to make them optional and a choice.

It's a question of democracy, which comes with the right to be whoever you want, and being protected by laws and safe whilest being it.

We are well aware of the fact that a pronoun doesn't change anything, and we are acctually not saying that we should never use them again we just want to avoid to put the kids in the "he" or "she" box, it's not for me to decide.

I've seen the article here in the UK. Personally, I think a place to have some space to play in with a bit more mental choice in it is always healthier than less. I'd gladly send my kids to it (if I had any). I would have LOVED that the male sexed kids in school referred to me as a friend or hen rather than having to beat the cr@p out of them regularly to prove I could play baseball just as good as them.

People bitch about how they wanted to play with certain toys etc when they were kids but were told they couldn't. here's a space where you can play with whatever the hell you want and be yourself for a few hours a day without someone forcing you to *be* something. You are given a choice to play with what you want, act in the way is most comfortable without having to choose a binary at age 4.

I would have LOVED it. It would have been breathing space for me. I think it's fabulous.

It absolutely has become an obsession. An obsession, that has turned the "movement" into a self-preoccupied, individualistic, gender hierarchy. I don't care that many don't see this. It's enough that I do.

Gender is not outdated. What is outdated is the gender binary. To the extent that, that binary is reified, or rendered invisible, we all remain oppressed.

I don't want my "landscape" rendered invisible.

Pronouns are not the issue. The meaning attached to them, are.

Certain behaviors and terms have been designated off limits, even illegal, in polite society, has that eradicated hate crimes, racism, sexism, xenophobia, or bias?

Gender neutral toys have been around for a generation.

I work with kids. The gender binary is getting worse, not better. Young people are more affected by popular culture than the toys they played with as little children.

As a child, I played with girl and boy toys. It did not change my cisButch outcome.

I don't see anything wrong with kids all calling each other friends rather than gender specific pronouns. However, I think allowing space for boys to play with dolls and girls to play with trucks or whatever other toys they choose- where there is no value placed on trucks being more important or boy-like or where boys will not be ridiculed for playing with dolls is more important than the reason we can all play with dolls or trucks is because we are all "friends" rather than "she" or "he."

I've been following this story for some time, and I have to say I'm pretty impressed with all I've read on it. I think it's an excellent idea. As others have said, it's not that the kindergarten system is attempting to take away gender should one wish to identify one way or the other, but to allow kids to decide for themselves what they want to play with rather than telling them trucks = boys = better and dolls = girls = lesser. The pronoun issue is also great, imo. I think at the very least it will help kids understand each other as humans first, instead of as specific genders as they're unfortunately taught in many places.

I also applaud them taking out books that peg boys/girls into fixed roles, like Cinderella, Snow White etc. where the "damsel" is always in distress and the "prince" must always come save her.

As others have said, Swedish/Scandinavian society is far more progressive than North American society, and even Western/Central European society in many respects. There seems to be a rise in the number of Swedish parents raising their children as gender neutral/allowing their children to express themselves as any gender they wish. And to be frank, most Scandinavian men I've met haven't been as obsessed with acting hypermasculine when they don't feel that's for them the way men are pressured to in many other societies. It's an interesting time in the "gender movement" when it comes to Sweden, imo. From Stieg Larsson's graphic depiction of a woman committing a revenge rape against her rapist (something which, from the articles I've read, North American critics have been less comfortable with...which is excellent, imo), to getting rid of the rigid gender binary in younger generations by widening the breadth of what they can acceptably be.

All that to say, I fully support this, and I do hope Canada catches on soon. Though that may be wishful thinking with our lovely friend Mr. Harper in the PMs seat. If I were to make a prediction, I would say that the rest of Scandinavia as well as the Benelux will be the next to catch on to striking gender rigidity from the Kindergarten curriculum.

EnderD, hi. I'm glad to read more specifics about this endeavor.

I'm still not understanding what goes on with pronouns in the class. When the teachers need pronouns (they can't keep saying friends, friend), do they use replacement forms (just to make some up as examples: hish, ishi...)? Are the kids then to pick up the use of the replacement forms?

If what you've been following goes into those details, I'd love to read it myself. I've just not been able to imagine it in practice at all.

tanx

As far as I know they only use "friends" when they're addressing a group of students, instead of calling them "boys and girls" or "boys" or "girls." As far as the pronouns, they say they use "hen" when addressing anyone in the third person, instead of him/her. They've explained that it's a non-existent pronoun in the Swedish language, but which they're using as a kind of gender neutral pronoun (a bit like they or even zie/hy etc that are sometimes used in English in the lgbt community), instead of identifying or assuming any one person's gender as masculine/feminine.

I had trouble seeing the practicality of using "hen" until you said it's like using "they."

I think that English speakers would be able to move more easily from "she/he" to "they," because of the related language change that has already been in progress for a while, namely "they" = 3rd person singular when referent is unspecified. (Previously "one" or the egregious "he," now "they.")

A replacement of established forms by novel, unrelated, and previously non-natural forms would be very difficult to effect in one swoop. But do you (or does anyone) know if maybe "hen" has been following a trajectory similar to "they"? If so, then I can see this finally now.

afterthought: it is likely something is being adopted as neutral 3rd person in Swedish, given the cultural direction this whole idea indicates

I think it's a great idea.